In Dire Straits

How had it come to this? The question rang in his head over and over as he marched with a band of monsters he hated into a war he had never believed in. How had it come to this? He was preparing to face an opponent that he could not even comprehend. Ragnarok? The end of the world? How could he fight that – and why? Charon had been living in a dead world for so long he could scarcely remember what it felt like to be alive. As everyone around him snapped slavering jaws in anticipation for the violence to come, he felt only dread. It was amazing, when he had time to think about it (as he did on this long march), how the bad feelings could keep piling up. Just when he thought he had reached the absolute limit of pain and negativity, a new feeling of horror would begin to grow in the pit of his stomach and he would realize with trepidation that this was not over.

It. Gets. Worse.

Why do I keep going? The question echoed in his head over and over with no answer. He marched because he knew he would be executed if he refused. But what did it even matter? What did it MATTER if his misery was inside him or if it was corporeal, a thousand fangs tearing his flesh apart and blissfully, finally ending his tortured existence. But he knew better. He knew the truth and the fallacy of death.

It. Never. Ends.

How long can I hold out? The question whispered in his head over and over, but he knew the answer to this one: As long as I have to. Charon had wanted to give up so many times. Even now, he wondered why he stepped one paw in front of the other – but still he walked on. He was too bitter to call it strength; it was more like spite that kept him going. He would see this through to the end. War was no different than any other day in Death Valley. Even as flames burst into life around him, he felt nothing but resignation. So this was how he would go – burned alive with his most hated comrades. He might have smiled at the irony if he didn’t have to squint so hard against the flames. But was it really irony if he always knew this would happen?

It. Was. Destiny.

Do I believe in destiny? He didn’t want this question in his head. I don’t want to. But it was all so effing biblical, wasn’t it? He saw wolves burning around him, he saw strange shapes outside the ring of fire that he knew hated him but he did not even know who they were. He didn’t want to kill them. But I would, oh I would, if there was no wall between us. He had no quarrel with them or their likely-insane believes that conflicted with his pack’s definitely-insane ones. But you deserve to suffer. Like I HAVE. His eyes tracked one of the pacing shadows along the wall of fire, almost hungrily, but he knew that he could not raise a claw against any one of these enemies as long as doing so would be in support of Oukoku-Kai. As his gaze drifted from the fighting, uninterested, he spotted something intriguing. An opening – dreamlike, he floated over to it and stepped through. He didn’t wake up until he was on the other side of the flames. He looked over his shoulder. He was only a few feet from the flames, but he was alone. No one seemed to notice the lone black wolf standing by himself.

It. Was. Quiet.

Do I want to be free? The question screamed in his head over and over, drowning out everything, drowning out every thought, overlapping until it became an unintelligible buzz in his ears. I could leave. Oddly, he thought of his mother, if you could call her that, the snake-woman who had given him life but no love. She had disappeared or died, he had never found out which and had never cared until this moment. This was his opportunity to follow his other parent’s example for once – he could fade away now. Everyone would assume he had died in the war, whether heroically or as a coward he didn’t care. He could be free. For a few more moments, he stood in limbo, shaking from every limb. This is my last chance. He bounded forward, into the darkness – he felt flames behind him, but he did not look back.

if you love something, set it freeif it doesn't come backhunt it downand kill it

~

Crow and Charon, two men of the same blood, two wolves of the same hungers, two beasts linked by the same thread of fate, and if Charon pulled against the strangling grip of it, knowing even now with the sliver of decency his father lacked that this place was something to FLEE FROM, a monster he should have run from years ago --

then surely Crow held the other end in his teeth, keeping the snare taut around his son's throat. Until now. Should the spidery boy look back, he'd see it tied as well around his father's muzzle. Until now. Their paradigms shifted and warped, the endings to their respective chapters crawled to an inconclusive apex, together together TOGETHER, like they'd always been. Ravenous Fenrir, unchained and turning anything that bled into quivering meat... and his son, the One Who Hates, chasing the sun to extinguish its grand light forever. I have never been able to shine. Why should you? I have never known warmth. Why should anyone else?

No creature like them had any right to live as long as these ones had.

It ends now. It ends here. Charon dragged Crow to him in his flight. Charon lured Crow to the spot, the only avenue of escape his wildfire had not been able to destroy. Blood ran hot and heady from the ugly, asymmetrical tears in his flesh, the wounds savage as knife slashes, as though inflicted by someone who did not yet have too intimate a familiarity with killing by their own teeth rather than via proxy, but had made up for it well with enthusiasm... and madness. Everything hurt. He shuddered as he walked, snapping his jaws with a hideous bone-on-bone crack, as though he could fight off looming death itself, as though he could intimidate his own agony into fading. Not since Azuhel had held him against that burning bush had he suffered like this.

(And yet in some deep and twisted way, Crow was proud. He would be here still, through her. He felt the shadow of himself in her merciless blows. He would go on loving Oukoku-Kai the same way that he and his granddaughter loved anything. He toyed with the forces that encircled the earth and finally, finally, one of them had toyed back. That was okay. He understood.)

"Charon," called an abomination made flesh. "Charon," cooed the devil himself through a wounded mouth.

Rosa forbid that his son turn around. But the father knew he would. Crow smiled, or tried to anyway, with his savaged face. The stench of smoke was overpowering.

It always ended like this. He should have been surprised, but that would have been naive of him. It had been a long time since Charon had been naive - certain forces in his life had made sure of that, forces that chased after him even now, unrelenting.

"Charon,"

The first emotion to surface was anger. It always was, wasn't it? Anger that his singular moment of clarity had been interrupted, had been stolen from him yet again by the beast that was his father. Anger that Crow even spoke his name, anger at the fact that he was angry. Hadn't they reconciled? Hadn't they talked? Then why did he feel like his bones were shattering and the bits were clattering together and his body was losing its shape and his mind was going in a circle and there was no end there was no end there was never an END (Is this what the afterlife is? More of the same?)

"We'll go together."

(Please don't kill me I don't want more of the same I don't want to be here and I can't die) He turned to face his father and beheld a torn, battered creature. For a moment he felt sick to his stomach, he felt bad (pity? not pity how can you pity someone who DESERVES IT?) and he wondered if his father would be okay (you weak boy you care about him and he'll never care about you). "Go?" he croaked, confused, his escape attempt momentarily forgotten. "You...can't..." His body spoke without his permission. His vocal chords vibrated but his brain was disconnected, floating above somewhere looking down on the flames and the two broken men that stood beside them. (not all wounds are visible you are a broken little boy a worthless little brat your father loved you and you hated him he gave you everything and you hated him he SCARRED YOUR MUZZLE but he SAVED YOU) Korangar's torn face sinks into the tar and Charon feels happy, elated, he loves this moment, this bond he shares with Crow with blood running down his face and it isn't his blood, for once.

Charon stood frozen. (he hurt you he created you) He flinched, one curved ear twitching in a betrayal of his inner turmoil. (he created you) He watched himself from above, a skinny boy who'd never had a chance, and finally he spoke without his voice shaking, "You can't come with me." He felt bile rise into this throat, his head was on fire, flames burst from his eye sockets and blurred his vision. Were the tears in his eyes from emotion or a reaction to the heat of the flames? Did it matter? He was stepping forward now - toward his father, away from his escape. He hated himself with every step. He had never stopped hating himself, from the moment he'd been old enough to think and feel. Crow had done that to him (he created you).

He was only a few steps away now. He didn't know what he was doing. He was snarling. He couldn't stop, he was...still talking. "Don't you ever want..." His voice was a pained growl - suddenly, he lunged forward, drool spraying from his gaping jaws, "TO STOP?" He aimed to crash into his father with his chest with all his might. Charon was not large, but neither was Crow. They were both angry, but which one had been hurt more? Which one had held onto his anger for his entire life, saving it for this very moment? He snapped at his father wildly, never aiming for the same place twice - his only plan was to overwhelmed his weakened father with a flurry of blows. Perhaps an observer who listened closely would hear the cries that came in between every assault.

"JUST!

DIE!

ALREADY!"

This world doesn't need you anymore. I don't need you anymore. There is no need for a creator to remain once their creation has finished evolving.

He looked like a cornered animal, with his eyes blown wide like that, his limbs stiff like someone suffering a convulsion, his back to the ravenous fire. The skyline behind them was beautiful, all washed-out grays and smoggy oranges. Crow had already started after his son, masking his limp with the fervor of a wild beast always fleeing from opportunistic tooth and claw -- because his consent only mattered in theory, didn't it? He told the boy how it was going to be. He didn't offer a yes or no. Said boy struggled against his binds, but ultimately gave in and followed. That was their way. It had always been their way.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Nothing lasted forever.

Crow didn't stop in his tracks as if struck. He didn't even look surprised. Just slowed his pace to a crawl that was distinctly predatory, breaking his direct path to his mirror image in favor of encircling him in an easy half-moon. The blind white eye didn't blink when the yellow one did. "Don't say no to me, Charon," said the black wolf, smiling without teeth, and though his voice was pleasant enough, the miasma of a threat lingered in wait, like a needle shoved into the center of an apple, like cyanide in a sweet biscuit. "You can probably see..." He indicated his injuries, dark and matted and fresh, with a twitch of his pointed snout. "... I'm not really in the mood."

He snaked past, urging the other animal forward. Hissed something that might have been an obscenity as one leg broadcasted loudly that it knew his condition better than he did. "Now, come on. I know the way."

Crow turned, to look Charon in the face, to let it be known that this was final, that he didn't have a choice. This time, he did hesitate, just a little, one pale foot suspended in midair. Slowly, very slowly, he set it down and watched closely.

There was something new in his son's eyes. Something terribly unlikable.

Don't you ever want to stop? Please, dad. Please don't kill me. Please let me go. Please don't ruin any more of me. Your dad created you, cooed a beast as it tightened the strings of their shared fate around his throat like a garrote. Your dad saved you. Your dad LOVES YOU. But in those eyes -- like a bauble, that all shattered somewhere deep in the core of Charon, because somewhere, somehow, we all know better than this. Love isn't terrifying, isn't humiliating, isn't a power struggle. Crow would never die for Charon. He would never hold him or comfort him or carefully tend to his wounds. He didn't care, not in the slightest, who Charon was, who Charon could BE, when he was not being an extension of himself. When he was not owned, an enjoyable toy, plenty diverting from the screaming in his head constant and deafening enough to have emerged from hell itself, from the dreamcreatures that ate pieces from him when he dared to sleep.

He would never stop. Never. Never.

The pain of his wounds flared up like a bonfire tossed new kindling. Charon's initial assault hit one hard, teeth in an inch-deep gash on his shoulder, and Crow screeched in mixed agony and rage as he was staggered and toppled, too quickly, too easily. Forced onto his hairless back, he thrashed violently, electrically, battering his son's vulnerable belly and groin with his hind feet, clawing at his face and eyes with the front ones, and then of course there were the faithless teeth, countering with berserk desperation what snaps he could. Gathering in his cut and filthy mouth what he could, a ghastly hybrid of blood and saliva and ash, Crow spit the entire disgusting mess into his attacker's face, and shrieked again, his war cry and his promise, before again Charon buried his weapons in an open wound

and the length of his struggling body seemed to seize and collapse all at once

and the hoarse scream became, unbelievably, a laugh. He let his head fall to one side. He exposed his tender throat.

"You want to kill me," breathed Crow, his grin too wide, mirthless, a fear grimace by any other name. It would not be real to him anymore, perhaps, until Charon had torn both jugulars and drowned him in the red pool they left in their ruin. Maybe not even then. "Your own father. Is that it? You've never killed anyone I haven't crippled for you first, Charon. You killed from a judge's chair. This is..." The laugh again, spasmodic, hahahAHAHA, and in that moment he looked far less like the troubled boy before him and more like the mad snaketail who'd died far from home. "... very different."

Just die already, dad. I hate you, dad. The world would be better without you in it. So would mine. In the face of this loathing, Crow breathed deep and smiled with bloody teeth, unrepentant, defiant, challenging.

"Look me in the eyes when you do it. Go on, Charon, you little vajayjay. You weak, pathetic, spineless little bitch. KILL ME."

His father chastised him, threats hidden behind gently admonishing words. He wasn't in the mood? Which mood was that, exactly? He had never known Crow to be pleasant (if you could call it that) without a victim nearby, and as far as he could see they were the only two in the clearing. There was no one here for Crow to punish but Charon himself, and the boy knew what that meant now. (He only loves you when you help him.) Korangar swam into view again, and Charon gritted his teeth with a small whimper. (Why did I do it?)

(I wanted him to love me.)

But he wouldn't. He couldn't. Nothing his father could ever do or feel had to matter anymore - he didn't have to listen, this could be his opportunity to break free forever. He wasn't sure what exactly freedom meant; he half suspected the entire world was just an extension of Oukoku-Kai, just a merciless land where monsters took turns sacrificing those they didn't agree with to gods that didn't exist. Still, his groundbreaking realizations were not enough to save him. He watched as his father began to circle him and he waited, as always, to see what the other would do. He'd always been afraid to make the first move, to take the first step. (Can you hear me, Charon? It's me.) The voice came to him suddenly, strangely soothing, audible even over the crackling of fire and the buzz of fear in his head. (It's you. I see you. Charon.) He searched for meaning in the message, muzzle twitching as if he were holding back a scream. (It wasn't your fault.) He was blinded by a flash of golden light and his lungs were filled with a chorus of angels. There truly were tears in his eyes now, spurred on by the righteous fury that consumed him now.

YOU WERE A PRODUCT OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

His mind left him then, all of his thoughts and fears and troubles melted away into an inky black river that occasionally allowed him glimpses of Crow's torn body. Perhaps this was that fabled berserker rage he had inherited from his father - but he didn't need to know about that. He didn't need to see any more similarities. For once, Charon was focusing on the differences. He ripped and tore at every piece of flesh he could grab, oblivious to any hits his father landed. He could not feel pain, not anymore, and even if he could none of it would have compared to how he'd felt his entire life. This was elation, finally, the moment he'd been afraid to look forward to.

Until Crow stopped. He laughed. He'd stolen another moment. Just as he always did.

"You want to kill me. Your own father. Is that it? You've never killed anyone I haven't crippled for you first, Charon. You killed from a judge's chair."

He placed one silver forepaw almost delicately on Crow's exposed throat - and then he pushed down, leaning in until his nose was nearly touching his father's. He pressed his paw down into the soft flesh of Crow's neck with all his might. He wanted to hear him gurgle, wanted to see the panic light up his one good eye. "Why is that a bad thing?" he hissed directly into his father's face. "Have you ever thought of your actions? Have you ever thought of-" He cut himself off with a snort and doubled down on the pressure he applied to the throat. "No. It doesn't matter. You'll never learn."

"Look me in the eyes when you do it. Go on, Charon, you little vajayjay. You weak, pathetic, spineless little bitch. KILL ME."

"You're already DEAD," he spat, leaning in even closer. "You've never been real. You're just a puppet for whatever god lets you get away with being a effing monster." The anger was flaring up again, somehow expanding beyond the capacity of Charon's small body. "And you wanted me to be like you!" He removed his paw from Crow's neck and placed it back on the ground. He took a few steps backward, never taking his eyes off of his father. "Well I'm not."

He breathed fast, mouth open teeth exposed tongue lolling, and snatched a strangled little gasp where he could. Even in this, there was something like a laugh. The sun-eye looked up, wide and bloodshot and bulging, at his avenging son. He could still smell the fire, flying blind and defeated in a violent storm. Maybe it would never leave. Maybe the smoke and the heat, the tortuous nausea and dizziness they gifted him, were as much part of him now as his beating heart. Charon would feel it just the same. The fire, deepening his sickness, his fury, his grief. The heartbeat beneath his paws, always racing, never calm.

Said some benevolent voice in Charon's mind, lending him a peace and righteousness he'd never felt before this moment: I see you. We're the same. It wasn't your fault.

Said Crow's heartbeat, the destructive flood of his pulse, the every nightmare he'd come to embody: i'm afraid. i'm afraid. i'm afraid.

i've always been so afraid.

There was a queer, indescribable ringing in his skull, like something coming from miles away. His neck rested in the guillotine, his wrists shackled, his every defense taken from him. Charon wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. He knew his little boy too well. But -- he never knew this had been coming, had he? Their last meeting had been so... nice. For a sliver in time, they could almost have been a normal father and son, just talking by the water on a slow day. Maybe Crow knew in some way, as a fellow beaten dog himself, that eventually his thready loyalty would snap. Not like this, though. Not quite like this.

The smoke behind his eyes thinned and dispersed, taking his mad high with it. Charon leaned down, close enough to touch. He could see his hair and flesh in teeth that parted and clicked like a set of knives as the boy hissed every ugly word, every accusation, every condemnation that perhaps had grown in him like a malignant tumor every since the very first day he'd looked up and realized that this was his father, that this was the only one he had in the world, who had torn his face and held him over the tar pits for disrespecting him. Look down, Charon. LOOK DOWN.

I'm afraid, sighed the last wisp of gray as it disappeared. A paradigm shift occurred all in silence. It was there as Crow's smug grin seemed to freeze. It was there as his paws began to twitch, the nails digging furrows into the earth. Something in the very back of his mind started to fade, covered up by... ah, something that surely wasn't fear. He was suddenly too aware of his own body. His body, which was just so much meat, with so many soft points at which to tear it asunder. They were all so weak. They were all so effing WEAK.

Would Charon really -- ?

Could he -- ?!

Later he'd tell himself no, that he'd known all along, that he hadn't offered his throat to someone who might take it. But that wasn't the truth. Were it only that someone was there to witness it, that they might remind Crow always of this moment, that they might never let him forget. He rolled to his belly when Charon finally let him go. Tried to stand and found that, oh hey, this was new, maybe he couldn't!

You're a puppet. You're a rabid dog. You're a effing monster. Now he was prey, in addition to all that.

"Who," croaked the black wolf, hoarser than he'd intended, "are you like, if not me?" He spit again, more blood, and dragged himself a few steps forward despite the pain. "You think you'll be happy out there? Nobody's ever going to want you, Charon."

They'll look at you and see my face. They'll listen to you and hear my voice. They'll know what you are. You're stained. You're damaged.

"I don't... want you... to leave." It was strange and disquieting, to hear these words come from his mouth. Like seeing the small bones of something long smothered in its cradle, doomed and dead. What could have been, Charon, if your father had been able to love you back, if he wasn't too filled with terror and hate? What might that have been like? Neither of them would ever know.

"If you leave," promised Crow, trying even now to struggle back to his paws. Grab an ankle in his teeth. Walk after him. Anything. "I'll follow you. I'll never let you go."

He didn't know the answer to that question, he couldn't ponder it right now, it was too much. His sides heaved as he tried to catch his breath after his violent assault. he hadn't killed his father - that meant he was stronger, right? Then why didn't he feel vindicated? Why didn't he feel better? What would it take to make him feel okay? His father had passed his fear onto him, his anger and bloodlust and distrust of authority and black fur and crawling darkness and demons (demons aren't real) and hatred (but you are.) We are all little demons, aren't we? Only out for ourselves - how was Charon any different? His desire for happiness was selfish, his need for freedom was excessive. He couldn't possibly deserve any of these things, he'd been a bad seed from the beginning. He'd never done anything worthy of reward. Breaking free of Crow was more than he could ever ask for - even now, he could not comprehend an existence that was not in spite of his father.

Silver eyes squeezed shut but couldn't hold back the tears that were still coming, still stinging his eyes and making him feel so weak. He'd never seen his father cry. Was that good or bad? "I know," he growled. "You made sure of that." But happiness was a lofty goal. Unrealistic. He just wanted...quiet... and peace. But peace was absurd too, wasn't it? What could he truly expect to gain by leaving? What awaited him in the Beyond? For a moment, his resolve wavered. For a moment, he took a step toward his father, who was trying to rise now. Forgive me, he thought, and immediately he felt the sting of his own mental whip punishing him. Help me. Tell me what to do. Please. Tell me how to be happy.

Blood. He remembered the smell of blood and the feelings that came with it. Happiness? Was that it? The high that came from tearing into the flesh of those who could not fight back? (How very like your father.) NO. That couldn't be happiness. It was supposed to be sweet, innocent, things he'd never experienced. He struggled to dredge up any feeling that could come remotely close to either of those things but he could not. The only things he had ever felt had been shades of fear and anger. Disgust. Much of it directed at himself. Even when he thought of his mother, he could only recall coldness - there had never been warmth, never been comfort. If he did not know these things now, how could he ever feel them in the future? Perhaps his run toward freedom was pointless after all.

"I don't... want you... to leave."

His eyes rolled up toward his father, though his head remained low. He could scarcely think. Was that emotion he heard in his father's voice? True feeling, a real desire to keep him around? (Then make me stay. I'm begging you. Give me a reason. Any reason. Let me kill with you again. Let's make them all suffer as I have suffered.)

"If you leave, I'll follow you. I'll never let you go."

(Foolish boy, you fell for it again.) How could he consider following in his father's footsteps after all he'd been through? He hated himself so very deeply, down to his rotten core - the bit of him that had been corrupted before his father had even begun to work on him. (Disgusting. Pathetic. You want to hurt others just so you can have a break from hurting yourself. You deserved everything, you voyeuristic little tapeworm.) This time those words were not spoken by his father, but by his own voice. "Why?" he begged, voice breaking with sobs, "Haven't I done enough for you?!" You don't need me. (You never needed me.)

The scattered remains, charred and rotten, of what in another life could have been rattled hard in his chest. He shivered like someone had just walked over his grave. A real one, a forever-grave, not like the stones erected in the wet ferns of that old forest maze in which he denned. That wouldn't happen. Things could not hurt him that severely anymore. Monsters don't die, and monsters don't hurt, and monsters don't cower among the rocks of a glacial beach, scared and starving and confronted at last with what they really are. What a lowly creature in the rung of life they'd turned out to be, sewer rat, parasite, mangy dog... a deranged and joyless puppet. For anyone. Who let him. Get away with it. Anyone who told him that he was powerful and special. Anyone who could be a substitute for the mother and father he, in his own sick and vile way, had perhaps wanted to love him once, so many years ago.

And yet even in them he could find no peace. Even in their eyes, he could see the reflection of his own weakness, the pitiful need he had for them all, and it drove him into an inconsolable rage. He killed his gods. He devoured his idols. He destroyed himself again and again. That scared and starving child on the beach grieved for them once it was over. The wolf -- the thing -- he was now didn't look back. Whatever he was now was irredeemable down to its core.

This, in the end, was what awaited Charon. Small wonder he chose to run from it.

You should never have been born, dad.

Crow watched his son weep and slitted his eyes, as if in question. Why are you crying, Charon? Is it meant to change my mind, provoke a show of mercy, let you free to make this... stupid... senseless... unacceptable decision? Usually he'd taunt him cruelly for his sentimentality, tell him tears are the refuge of the weak, and we eat the weak -- think it's time we eat you next? My lovely Ink is always so very hungry. Usually it would be his cue to attack and mock and humiliate him back into silence. Not this time. When Charon moved closer, Crow snaked his neck forward a bit and seemed to scent the tear-stained face.

"Stop crying," he hissed, in contempt and confusion alike. But that was all, for once. Have you ever cried, dad? Did the tears burn fiercely, like acid, upon your cheeks? Hell if he'd remember, or even deign to think about it -- imagine him, sobbing as hideously as any sad eff he'd ever torn into wet red rags. That was a joke. Maybe as a baby, he'd never stopped screaming. Maybe he'd used it all up.

Let me go, dad. I've done enough for you. Please. Please. PLEASE.

"Stay with me," echoed Crow almost immediately, his one good eye shining sanguine, because he was not swayed by tears or begging. He wasn't swayed by what Charon thought he wanted. "You won't be someone else's son. You won't find yourself a happy little family in some effing podunk to replace me. I want you. You're MINE. Don't you d --" He was interrupted by a violent series of hacking coughs, and bit down much too hard on his lip to cease them. A trickle of new blood oozed from the hole left behind. He choked on his own frenzy. "-- don't you dare leave, you f-f-effing --"

And he stopped. Fell into silence, just like that, and for a moment only went on watching his boy.

"... this place. Where I want to go. Alteron. I was born there. I grew up there. Come and see. You'll like it, I promise. Just. Stay."

It was an unexpected statement for his father to make - almost too normal, too classically fatherly. Boys don't cry. But he knew that Crow didn't care about girls and boys. He only cared about Us and Them, and it turned out that moving from one group into the other was impossibly hard. Charon had been born an Us, whether he'd liked it or not. He'd probably never truly be able to be a Them - he imagined They were happy, They worried about things like sharing their time between Their many friends and loving families. He'd never had to worry about those things. Briefly, in this moment, he struggled to remember the face of even one kind soul from his history, but he was coming up empty. The tears were drying on his face now; they had stopped falling. He sniffled, unable to suppress the pathetically childish noise. He was just a boy with his father, a boy staring at a half-dead maniac and accepting that he was gazing into his future. (You can't take back the things you've done.)

It was not a thin red string of fate that linked them, but an unbreakable, heavy chain. It wrapped around his body and every time he struggled to break free it wound tighter. He couldn't move his legs, he could barely breathe. He could taste metal - was it the chain between his teeth or his father's blood? He wasn't sure there was a difference.

"Stay with me."

Why, he wanted to ask again, but he knew he would not get an answer. Even if he did, it could never satisfy him. He didn't really want an answer. He didn't want to give Crow the chance to make something logical out of all this, to get inside his head any more than he already was. You don't belong here. As if saying that had ever worked before.

"You won't be someone else's son. You won't find yourself a happy little family in some effing podunk to replace me. I want you. You're MINE. Don't you d --"

The chain tightened around his neck, he struggled to breathe, he could feel the darkness consuming his brain and he knew that he wasn't long for this world, this was truly the end - and then it stopped. He could breathe. The sound of his father's choking coughs had broken the spell. So he was mortal after all. The beast before him continued to stutter out empty threats, and this time Charon only watched. He almost felt...sorry. He had dreamed of this moment for so long, and now that it was upon him he was disappointed by how thoroughly disappointing it was. His father was broken, desperate, a wild animal caught in a trap. Somehow he'd always imagined that his finally meeting with Crow would be more heroic. "I don't belong to you," he said coldly, all fear gone from his voice now.

"... this place. Where I want to go. Alteron. I was born there. I grew up there. Come and see. You'll like it, I promise. Just. Stay."

He tried to be rational again, but it was too late - the damage had been done, and Charon simply looked at him as a parent would look down at a child who they knew was reciting a practiced lie. "I don't want to see whatever the hell made you," he said. "Why don't you just go there by yourself? Start another family...what is this, the fifth one? Maybe that one will finally fill the void." He shook his head dismissively. It felt powerful, to know that his father was too weak to do anything to him. He had to listen."Or maybe you'll just die here," he mused. "You're losing a lot of blood." He sat down then, too comfortable, almost arrogant. I'll watch.